Quebec City, home of Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, is lush with flowers and greenery, whether on shop doors, street signs or more.

Quebec City, home of Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, is lush with flowers and greenery, whether on shop doors, street signs or more.

Photo: Karen Haram, San Antonio Express-News

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Small shops, boutiques and gift stores line the streets of Quebec City near Chateau Frontenac.

Small shops, boutiques and gift stores line the streets of Quebec City near Chateau Frontenac.

Photo: Karen Haram

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Close by the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, shoppers can browse the streets of old Quebec City.

Close by the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, shoppers can browse the streets of old Quebec City.

Photo: Karen Haram, San Antonio Express-News

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Near Chateau Frontenac, a funicular takes riders to and from the lower level of Quebec City, and nearer the waters of the St. Lawrence River.

Near Chateau Frontenac, a funicular takes riders to and from the lower level of Quebec City, and nearer the waters of the St. Lawrence River.

Photo: Karen Haram

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Even visitors not staying at Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac like to visit the castle-like hotel.

Even visitors not staying at Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac like to visit the castle-like hotel.

Photo: Karen Haram, San Antonio Express-News

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Outdoor cafes, charming homes and businesses line the streets of Quebec City, home of Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac..

Outdoor cafes, charming homes and businesses line the streets of Quebec City, home of Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac..

Photo: Karen Haram, San Antonio Express-News

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A view outside the window of Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac shows the activity on the St. Lawrence River.

A view outside the window of Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac shows the activity on the St. Lawrence River.

Photo: Karen Haram, San Antonio Express-News

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Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac is a popular tourist spot for those visiting Quebec City.

Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac is a popular tourist spot for those visiting Quebec City.

Photo: Karen Haram, San Antonio Express-News

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Reliving, and remembering, a childhood vacation to Canada

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QUEBEC CITY — Often, what seems immense and impressive through a child's eyes appears sadly diminished when viewed as an adult.

But sometimes, thankfully, that doesn't hold true.

Such was the case with the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac here, Canada's best-known hotel, famous for its historic architecture and breathtaking views of the St. Lawrence River and beyond.

I first spotted what's called the most photographed hotel in the world on a trip to Canada when I was about 10 years old. Growing up with modest means, vacations beyond our Illinois border were rare, and out of the country, unheard of.

But there my sister Nancy, Mom, Dad, dog Mike and I were, traveling to a foreign country for some life-broadening, educational experiences.

Did I mention our vacation was in a travel camper so small that I had to sit on the kitchen table, aka bed, if Nancy needed to move past me?

Things had not gone smoothly on our venture, beginning when we tried to cross the Canadian border. My parents were shocked to learn that our dachshund wouldn't be allowed to go with us without a record indicating his shots were up-to-date. A country dog bought from a farmer in a neighboring county, Mike had never been near a needle.

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So there we were, traveling from our Southern Illinois farm, driving dazed and confused through congested Detroit with its nearly 2 million residents, trying to find a veterinarian to inoculate Mike from whatever dreadful disease might be awaiting on the other side of an imaginary line in a foreign country.

My dad, never one to ask directions, drove for hours, as my mother sat in stony silence, having given up trying to get my father to stop at a gas station to ask where we might be able to find someone to help us.

Many hours later, back at the border, we tried to cross again. That was the point that my father, who I never knew to tell a lie besides this one, turned renegade in fear we'd once again be denied entry into Canada.

“Do you have any guns?” the border agent asked.

“No,” said my father, who, though an infrequent hunter, had a large collection of antique guns — including a long Parker shotgun peeking out from beneath the front seat.

My mother blanched as she shot my sister and me a look that read, “OK, your Dad has really done it now, but you better keep that to yourselves.”

We just thought our drive looking for a veterinarian was in stony silence.

Having lost a day meandering our way around Detroit, Dad was determined to make up for lost time the next day, driving with no possibility of a stop until my sister's and my grousing that we were hungry finally worked.

But being in a travel trailer and on a limited budget, meant Mom would be making our meal.

And then we had our real educational experience of the trip, though likely not the one Mom and Dad had hoped for.

I remember my mother grumbling something like, “Why can't we travel and stay in a motel and eat at a restaurant like other people?” as she pulled out a griddle and ground beef from the red-and-black plaid Skotch Kooler and starting forming hamburger patties.

As the burgers sizzled away, the trailer, which Dad hadn't taken the time to level properly in his haste to get Nancy and me fed and quieted down, slid backward a foot or so.

As it went, so did the skillet and burgers, plop on the floor, with grease spewing on cabinets, our bed/table and beyond.

These were my Dad's exact words: “Girls, I need you to go outside and go for a walk. I'll come get you in a little while.”

What went on inside the camper I'll never know. I do recall we went to a restaurant and ate a meal like other vacationers before heading to our ultimate destination, Quebec City.

And there in that beautiful, historic city, sitting in lawn chairs outside our little camper, we looked far up the hill and saw the Château Frontenac for the first time.

The hotel was the grandest thing I'd ever seen, reminding me of a castle like those I'd seen in fairy tales. My sister and I vowed that, someday, we'd stay in that hotel and eat in a restaurant like our Mom wanted us to do and not see Canada from a camper.

In the early '80s, I shared a room at the hotel with two friends one night while attending a food conference in Canada, but that was for work and not the trip my sister and I had planned during our childhood vacation.

A few years ago, my sister fulfilled our dream first, vacationing in this hotel that was built for the Canadian Pacific Railway company and opened in 1893. It was just as she remembered it, she told me, perched atop a hill overlooking the Saint Lawrence River, charming shops and gourmet restaurants. We contrasted that stay with the one we'd had here as children, laughing at our shared memory of our Canadian vacation gone awry.

After a three-year battle with cancer, my beloved sister, who lived in Houston, passed away a year ago, with her ashes to be inurned in Vermont, where she and her husband had a second home. When my husband and I made our travel plans for the late-summer ceremony, I knew there was no way I could be within four hours of that grand hotel from our childhood and not keep the promise I'd made to her.

The Château, with its copper turrets and stone tower, was just as I remembered it from more than half a century ago, as imposing and castlelike as it had seemed through my 10-year-old eyes.

The hotel, designed by architect Bruce Price (the father of Emily Post) and designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1980, was everything I'd imagined. More than 600 beautifully decorated guestrooms and suites offered a view of the river or Old Quebec City. Meals and drinks in the hotel's restaurant and bars were memorable, highlighted by an early morning breakfast in the hotel when we heard someone call, “Karen and Mark” and saw Whataburger chairman Tom Dobson and wife Nora waving to us to join them at a neighboring table.

It was all I dreamed that the castlelike hotel would be when I was a child.

But, as life goes, just as when I was a child, I wanted what I didn't have.

Grand as the hotel was, I would have traded the luxurious stay in a second to once again be able to sit in green-and-white webbed lawn chairs by our camper with my sister, dog, Mom and Dad, looking at the hotel from the outside in.